Over the past four years, we have discussed my penchant for pursuing impossible crushes, mostly of women singer songwriters because nothing raises the goose bumps on my arms faster than an amazing woman singer song writer. The combination of beauty and music making is 7,239 times better than the combination of peanut butter and chocolate. The most current singer song writer to occupy that chair is Natalie Imbruglia. Natalie has ignored me for two years running, and I can’t say I blame her.

Mostly because Natalie lives in London. She probably loves London as much as I love La Jolla, leading to that uncomfy conversation a few months after our sushi dinner where one of us would have to ask the “will you move” question. That would have ruined dessert and created at least fourteen minutes of uncomfortable silence . It’s best Natalie and I did not have that sushi dinner.

Periodically, a great actress will enter the list, like Tuesday Weld did way before I was born. I had big plans for being ignored by an unrequited crush even before mom and dad met and fell madly in love. Such is my ability to plan.

Below is the complete crush list from pre-zygote stage to three minutes ago. Enjoy.

1956: Tuesday Weld

1965: Ann Margaret

1973: Marie Osmond

1975: Kim Richards

1976: Gina Biggs

1981: Pat Benatar

1985: Jennifer Connelly

1986: Alison Moyet

1989: Ione Skye

1991: Kim Gordon

1994: Kim Deal

1995: Melissa Auf der Maur

1996: AlanisNadineMorissette

1999: Jennifer Connelly

2000: Liz Phair

2002: Beth Hart

2003 to 2006: None. Madly in love and married

2007: Rudi Bakhtiar

2007:(June 23rd, 3:00 p.m. until 4:43 p.m.) Chelsea Lately

2008: Rudi Bakhtiar

2009: Natalie Imbruglia

2010 (Jan-July): Natalie Imbruglia

2010 (July-?): Linda Cardellini

In his book The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch encouraged his daughter to always watch someone’s actions when in a relationship. Listen to the words, but pay attention to the actions. This also applies to crushes that exist only where unicorns frolic under dragon filled skies. Throughout 2009, Natalie Imbruglia has ignored my desire to have a sushi dinner with her. This ignoration continued through the end middle of 2010: I get the message. I will never have a sushi dinner with Natalie Imbruglia, regardless of my passive aggressive non efforts at a sushi dinner.

Linda Cardellini, star of Freaks and Geeks and a bunch more interesting celluloid projects……..come on down! Your beauty, intellect, and grace took you from the on deck circle up to the plate. You now have the first right of refusal for that sushi dinner in The LJ. Congratulations and I very much looking forward to not hearing from you in the very near future.

The Mind of Mully

I should have guessed

When I took that pill

Do I love her still?

Well, did Jesus kill?

(Editor’s Note: Yes, “ignoration” is not a word. Neither is farfegnugen, yet no one judged Volkswagen.)

(Please right click on the link below to cue up the suggested background music to this evening’s treatise on Power Point silliness in a new browser window. This is part two of two. You can find part one of two by clicking on the thing up there that takes you back to yesterday. Because they are sequential. That’s how we roll in The Attic)

“At the heart of quantitative reasoning is a single question: Compared to what?Small multiple designs, multivariate and data bountiful, answer directly by visually enforcing comparisons of changes, of the differences among objects, of the scope of alternatives. For a wide range of problems in data presentation, small multiples are the best design solution.”

“I do believe that there are some universal cognitive tasks that are deep and profound – indeed, so deep and profound that it is worthwhile to understand them in order to design our displays in accord with those tasks.”

“There are many true statements about complex topics that are too long to fit on a PowerPoint slide.”

“It’s not that PowerPoint brought the Columbia down, but the method of presentation broke up the argument into tiny fragments, and it’s intensely hierarchical-no sentences, just little phrases.” (Mr. Tufte was brought in after the Columbia crash to assist NASA in a root cause analysis….one of the roots was a poorly designed Power Point slide)

“At its heart, my work is about how to think clearly and deeply, using evidence, and all that has to pass through some presentation state.”

“What gets left out is the narrative between the bullets, which would tell us who’s going to do what and how we’re going to achieve the generic goals on the list.”

“We’ve drifted into this presentation mode without realizing the cost to the content and the audience in the process.”

The Mind of Mully

Mic check…..

Ha, ha ,ha

I be the

Anti Myth Rhythm Rock Shocker

Welcome down with the warrior sound………………………….

Let’s say someone has a gun to your kitten’s head and they say “choose one article that goes deep on faceted analytical displays, or the kitten dies”…pick this one and your kitten remains unscathed. A little ditty by Stephen Few kicking off with a spiffy little tale from our childhood.

(Please right click on the link below to cue up the suggested background music for this evening’s treatise in a new browser window. The Beatles and Jay Z, wrapped with a bow by DJ Dangermouse is a tastier treat than peanut butter and chocolate. )

As documented throughout history, the three most terrifying activities to the general public are as follows:

Hunting velociraptors with a can of Silly String and a plastic spork

Public speaking

Dating Mel Gibson

Since we have covered the first and third fears ad nauseum over the past four years, this evening’s MLOG will deal with public speaking. More precisely, this MLOG deals with the crutch and IQ reducing tool named Power Point. When you are going to address a group of people in any situation, please keep in mind that it is not about the slides. It is about you doing the proper research to speak knowledgably about the subject. It is about you gathering the key points from the research into 5,000 foot categories that will engage and teach your audience.

Most important, it is about those individuals that chose to show up and sit in those chairs while you astound and amaze.

You do not owe your audience slides and fancy animation. You owe them novel thought, pedagogical wizardry, and depth. Animation does not add depth, nor does a slide deck. Your brain and what you choose to feed your brain through research adds depth.

A few months back, in their “Weekend Journal”, the New York Times had a fantastic compilation of articles thrown into a stew called “Does the Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber”? Great question.

Not sure how they do things these days in the secondary schools: they let me out years ago, despite the warnings and admonishments from the juvenile court system. Used to be that you would pick a topic, submit that topic, submit an abstract on your paper, then complete the paper. A student would research the topic from multiple sources, make copious notes from these multiple sources, make an outline, and then begin writing. On ten page papers, the best teachers allowed double spacing and we all counted the cover page as Page 1.

We did not have the internet when I was a kid, nor did have presentation software like Harvard Graphics and Power Point. You did your research at the library or at a friend’s house if their parents had chosen to purchase the Encyclopedia Britannica. My parents purchased the full set of Encyclopedia Britannica for the four of us when we were young. Encyclopedia Britannica was my introduction to plagiarism. “Cut and paste” back then meant have the book propped up next to the typewriter, copy the paragraph……mindfully changing the trisyllabic adjectives.

MTV was a corner turner in the dumbing down of America. A few short years after launch, we had a news program encapsulating the days tops stories into three minutes and we had life and stories condensed into three minute intervals. Soon thereafter, we had sound and light tossed at our minds in fashion sure to make an epileptic gesticulate madly for the mouth dam to avoid biting off their tongue during an MTV generated fit. Minds that had historically been wired for deep, intellectual learning began evolving into a different animal. An animal rapidly distracted by the next shiny thing appearing faster than Chuck Woolery could get back from a “two and two” break.

One of the New York Times articles explained the average time a person spends on a web page is fifty-six seconds. You cannot learn anything in fifty-six seconds. Heck, even Stephen Hawking cannot learn anything in fifty-six seconds. We have not only transformed from a society that used to spend days researching a single topic through reading multiple source books to a society that spends an average of fifty-six seconds per web page, our sources have weakened more than Lance Armstrong in that sissy French bike race.

Each book in the libraries we all used to visit was edited and fact checked, as are all periodicals. Very little, if anything, on the WWW is fact checked or properly edited. At least when we plagiarized the Encyclopedia Britannica back in the day, we were stealing ideas and sentences from intelligent folks who received a paycheck to research and write what we stole. That’s not going to happen on the WWW where you may be cutting and pasting something written by my seven year old nephew Gavin without knowing it. Gavin writes 43% of the stuff you see daily on Fox News. There is little to no editorial oversight on the WWW.

A few weeks back, a MLOG featured various cartoons about killing kittens through the sin of Onan. Some noticed the sixth kitten cartoon down and asked who Edward Tufte was and why was that single cartoon featured in a kitten killing MLOG. They also may have said to themselves: “Self……..who is this Mr. Edward Tufte and why would Mr. Tufte pop a cap in a kitten because of Power Point?”

Another excellent question.

Edward Tufte has dozens of letters after his name and is currently a professor of statistics, graphic design, and political economics at Yale. Mr. Tufte had himself one of those Guggenheim Foundation fellowships and another fellowship from the Center for Advanced Studies and Behavioral Studies.

Favorite Edward Tufte quote: “Clutter is the failure of design, not an attribute of information”

Runner up Edward Tufte quote: “The worst thing Microsoft has ever done is to replace the fundamental unit of analysis, the sentence, with the bullet, the grunt.”

The first night we all climbed up here, made reference to animation in Power Point and how Power Point slides (especially those with animation) are for morons. Two questions in business make me want to stick knitting needles in both eyes. The first question is “do you think we are going to get caught embezzling?” The second question is “have we prepared the presentation slide deck?”

The correct form of the first question is: “How can we make absolutely certain that no one will catch us embezzling?”

The correct form of the second is: “Have we done all the research we can on this customer and the topic and do we know their goals, people, and unmet needs?

Those who choose to put together a slide deck at the last minute filled with bullet points are reminiscent of Christian Laetner’s buzzer beater versus Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA end of year hoop-it-up tournament. Most who choose to do this follow this offense:

Choose Power Point template style (5 minutes)

Make up bullets to fill in spots on Power Point template (60 minutes)

Chose pretty pictures (120 minutes)

Make slides look pretty (60 minutes)

Practice saying these slides (30 minutes)

The solution takes us back to middle school; blocking and tackling we learned there. If you are going to use a slide deck, finish the slide deck last: the slide deck should mirror your outline. When you use animation or choose to write Tolstoyesque paragraphs up on the big screen, no one is going to look at you. They will pay attention to the screen and read the words instead of paying attention to you, your intonation, and your non verbal clues. You are the message. Your Power Point slide deck is not the message.

Presentations and/or the opportunity to speak in public seldom sneak up on us. Next time you have the chance to engage an interested audience, try this offense:

Make outline (1 hour)

Research audience and their interests (6-8 hours)

Research topic (12 hours)

Choose Power Point template style (1 minute)

Fill in Power Point using outline (60 minutes)

Chose pretty pictures (3 minutes)

Make slides look pretty (10 minutes)

Practice saying these slides (2 hours)

When you choose to do the proper amount of research on your customer and/or topic, you will be as dangerous as Mohammed Ali was against Jerry Quarry in 1970. Tangent Alert: How much do you miss the endless parade of “great white hopes” we used to have in the 1970’s and 1980’s? Am so, so glad I did not fall for Don King’s promises and winks when I took up boxing in 1998. Would have ended up tossed aside on the “great white hope” scrap heap, bitter and angry. Like Glenn Beck or Vanilla Ice.

Back on track. We spent a great deal of time in grade school, high school, and college learning to research and write for many reasons. First, we learned to go deep on topics in analytical and pragmatic fashion. Only by going deep on a topic can you actually learn that topic. Second, we learned to write so that we could convey these thoughts to others in the business world in a well thought out and easily understood fashion. Finally, and most important, our papers allowed our teachers to torment and punish those they truly despised.

A good way to buy yourself an insurance policy against business failure is to get back to researching and outlining basics. It all starts with a good outline so here is a good general outline you can use. You are welcome.

Title

I. Topic One

A. Sub topic 1

B. Subtopic 2

C. Etc

II Topic Two

A. Subtopic 1

B. Subtopic 2

C. Etc

III Topic Three……..yadda, yadda, yadda

Another way you can set it up is as follows, especially if you are collecting data for a Marketing plan, an R&D project, or a sales territory analysis and plan.

1. Introduction

2. Literature review

3. Methodology

4. Data

5. Analysis

6. Results

7. Conclusion

Here is a final example of a research paper outline, with The Land of Cleve as the broad reaching topic. Again, you are welcome.

Introduction

Background Information

Location of Cleveland

Geography of the Surrounding Area

Facts about Cleveland

Rise and fall of The Flats as a place to drink beer

How it was named

The Land (English name)

Of Cleve (Indian name)

Cleveland (Merged name)

Detailed information on how bad Dennis Kucinich was as mayor

Major Sports Challenges Covered in this Paper

The Drive

Denver Broncos have always been an arm of Satan

Satan helped John Elway with “The Drive”

The Fumble

Denver Broncos have always been an arm of Satan

Satan reached his arm in and knocked the ball from Byner’s arms

The Indians (as the farm team for Boston, Philly, Chicago, ad nauseum)

1970 to 1990

1990 to Present

Pennants won by other teams with Indian trades

The Impact Cleveland on the World

Ecological Effects

1200 to 1400: Cleveland plants all trees in Amazonian Basin

Piles of trash exported to Detroit and Youngstown allowed for hills

Economic Effects

At one time, Cleveland rivaled Great Britain for control of the high seas

All life on the globe, as well as all trade routes began and ended in Cleveland from 900 BC through 1974

Cultural Effects

Introduction of fire

Introduction of the wheel

Introduction of gravity

Introduction of motor vehicles

Introduction of electricity

Conclusion

Once you have done your outline, you nail down your research. We then move on to what Mr. Tufte calls the analytical design portion of presenting. “Good displays of data help to reveal knowledge relevant to understanding mechanism, process and dynamics, cause and effect.”“Clear and precise seeing becomes as one with clear and precise thinking.”

Choosing to skip the research and depth of knowledge would be as silly as turning the Jay-Z/Dangermouse tunes you cued up when you right clicked the link up top into a single Power Point Slide like this. Good job following the Rule of Sixes, though. No more than six lines with no more than six words per line on any slide. Well done.

Once the clear and precise thinking has been done through research, the helping others to see will become Zen. We will go deeper into Mr. Tufte and the Power Point silliness at a later date as part two of this two part series. Until then, thanks for visiting this evening and here is a bunny with a pancake on its head.

The Mind of Mully

What the h*ll

Are you waiting for?

After me

There will be no more….

If you feel like going deep on Edward Tufte before we visit with him again, feel free to click on the link below:

This kid here (click below) sold 1,000,000 pixels for $1.00 each to put himself through school. Has absolutely nothing to do with anything above; however, I love this kid and the idea. Plus it never fit anywhere else. He thought of a hole, dug the hole, and filled in the hole. That’s marketing. Bravo Alex Tew….bravo.

Does it have “see Springsteen sing all his tunes from’ Greetings From Asbury Park’ live” on it?

If not, you might want to cue up that video up there, take it for a test ride, and then copy and paste the line below into your bucket list.

“See Springsteen sing all his tunes from ‘Greetings From Asbury Park’ live”

The ragamuffin gunner is returning home like a hungry runaway
He walks through town all alone
He must be from the fort he hears the high school girls say
His countryside’s burning with wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide
The hit and run, plead sanctuary, beneath a holy stone they hide
They’re breaking beams and crosses with a spastic’s reeling perfection
Nuns run bald through Vatican halls pregnant, pleading immaculate conception
And everybody’s wrecked on Main Street from drinking unholy blood
Sticker smiles sweet as gunner breathes deep, his ankles caked in mud
And I said, “Hey, gunner man, that’s quicksand, that’s quicksand that ain’t mud
Have you thrown your senses to the war or did you lose them in the flood?”

That pure American brother, dull-eyed and empty-faced
Races Sundays in Jersey in a Chevy stock super eight
He rides her low on the hip, on the side he’s got” Bound For Glory” in red, white and blue flash paint
He leans on the hood telling racing stories, the kids call him Jimmy The Saint
Well the blaze and noise boy, he’s gunnin’ that bitch loaded to blasting point
He rides head first into a hurricane and disappears into a point
And there’s nothing left but some blood where the body fell
That is, nothing left that you could sell
Just junk all across the horizon, a real highwayman’s farewell
And I said, “Hey kid, you think that’s oil? Man, that ain’t oil that’s blood.”
I wonder what he was thinking when he hit that storm
Or, was he just lost in the flood?

Eighth Avenue sailors in satin shirts whisper in the air
Some storefront incarnation of Maria, she’s puttin’ on me the stare
And Bronx’s best apostle stands with his hand on his own hardware
Everything stops, you hear five, quick shots, the cops come up for air
And now the whiz-bang gang from uptown, they’re shooting up the street
And that cat from the Bronx starts letting loose
But he gets blown right off his feet
And some kid comes blasting round the corner but a cop puts him right away
He lays on the street holding his leg screaming something in Spanish
Still breathing when I walked away
And someone said, “Hey man did you see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud.”
I wonder what the dude was saying or was he just lost in the flood?
Hey man, did you see that, those poor cats are sure messed up
I wonder what they were getting into, or were they just lost in the flood?

In Mr. Springsteen’s earlier work, he was clearly channeling Ireland’s own William Butler Yeats.

First fell madly in love with coffee while working for the city of Westlake, Ohio at Clague Park during high school and college breaks with one of my best friends, TC. The full timers with whom we were paired relished their 15 minute breaks and soon I was consuming seventeen pots of coffee a day each summer. Thus began a torrid love affair that most believe will never end. Were it possible to marry coffee, I could beat Usain Bolt down the matrimonial aisle in a sprint.

Coffee: accept no substitutes.

Tea is far more complicated and far less satisfying than coffee. Have been known to backhand seatmates on coast to coast flights when they order tea at the beginning of a flight. If my seatmate orders tea, it’s going to take an additional six minutes for me to get that first Bloody Mary. Was a waiter for years and documented that customers ordering tea from me not only had poor global perception, they also tended to tip in the 10% neighborhood. Have harbored a certain mistrust and dislike of tea drinkers for three decades.

Coffee: accept no substitutes.

Cecil Jacobs made me forget. He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Fitch’s daddy defended niggers. I denied it, but told Jem.

“What’d he mean sayin’ that?” I asked.

“Nothing”, Jem said “Ask Atticus, he’ll tell you.”

“Do you defend niggers, Atticus?” I asked him that evening.

“Of course I do. Don’t say ‘nigger’, Scout. That’s common.”

In an entertaining case of life imitating art, Mr. Mark Williams’ supposedly satirical stylings from the fringe side of the Tea Party movement dragged a bunch of us back to Harper Lee’s brilliant To Kill a Mockingbird this weekend. Specifically, the portion of the book where Atticus cautions Scout to not be “common”. While not actually taking the ball over the goal line and writing “nigger”, Mr. Williams’ write in name tags at all future social gatherings will most certainly be scrawled:

“Mark Common Williams (moron extraordinaire)”

The tails make up the most entertaining portions of any mythical bell curve because that’s where the really, really, really crazy folk set up shop. Very few of us pay any attention to the 97.6% in the middle. Mark Williams, David Duke, Malcolm X, and Malik Zulu Shabazz are far more entertaining than anyone else showing up in the middle of the Gaussian distribution. Personally I do not feel that Mr. Williams speaks for most white folks any more than I feel Mr. Shabazz speaks for most black folks. Although showing up at the tails of the distribution, each is common.

Here is Mr. Williams’ little ditty in its entirety. Wow. What a fantastic way to marginalize yourself.

Dear Mr. Lincoln

We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week. We voted to condemn a political revival of that old abolitionist spirit called the ‘tea party movement’.

The tea party position to “end the bailouts” for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn’t that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds! Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds.

And the ridiculous idea of “reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government.” What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions!

The racist tea parties also demand that the government “stop the out of control spending.” Again, they directly target coloreds. That means we Coloreds would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government “stop raising our taxes.” That is outrageous! How will we coloreds ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?

Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

Sincerely

Precious Ben Jealous, Tom’s Nephew NAACP Head Colored Person

I don’t get to see TC as much as I would like to these days because we live on opposite coasts and TC did a fine job of procreating a fantastic family. Last time we saw each other was June, 2009. We rented Gran Torino that evening. A masterful pairing of book and movie to counteract Mr. William’s vitriol would be for you to rent Gran Torino tonight and leaf through To Kill a Mockingbird while watching the flick.

Love the new Dyson ball vacuum cleaner and love Dyson’s motto. Dyson’s motto is “we solve the obvious problems that others seem to ignore.” The obvious answer to common morons choosing to marginalize themselves is simple. Ignore them. Problem solved and, as always…..

You are welcome! Thanks for joining us today. Come back tommorrow when we do something on morphine, Jello, and early punk rock bands.

Atticus sat looking at the floor for a long time. Finally, he raised his head. “Scout,” he said, “Mr. Ewell fell on his knife. Can you possibly understand?”

Atticus looked like he needed cheering up. I ran to him and kissed him and hugged him with all my might. “Yes, sir, I understand,” I reassured him. “Mr. Tate was right.”

This MLOG is dedicated to my twenty year old niece, Erin. Erin has never been common, nor will she ever be common. My three sisters are amazing wives and mothers…..you three make me proud to be your brother 24/7. Hugs and much love.

Am a fan of niche marketing. It allows smaller players in a market to capture a large portion of a smaller, segmented market. Consider reggae music. Reggae music would not exist if people did not smoke the sticky icky because most reggae music sucks pretty badly. Reggae music makers knew their music sucked pretty badly so they paired it up with dope smoking and BOOM: they captured that niche. Same with Cypress Hill. No one in their right minds would listen to that annoying high pitched whining “insane in the membrane”, were they not stoned. Go home and listen to Insane in The Membrane stone sober and we will all wait right here for you.

See? It sucked, didn’t it?

Same thing Phish and Widespread Panic did with magic mushroom consumers. There’s no way people would listen to Phish or Widespread Panic hour after hour, were they not tripping on mushrooms. Clever stuff, that niche marketing

eHarmony is a fantastic example of niche marketing. eHarmony markets their service to people that want to get married. eHarmony has no product to sell and they carry no inventory. eHarmony has no buyers or planners, they never have a missed shipment, ad infinitum. e Harmony is simply a market maker…..the NASDAQ for people who dream of procreation yet hear “tick, tick, tick, tick, tick” ever loudly with each passing day. eHarmony markets their service as a cure for that telltale heart sound. Brilliant.

Many of us have no intention of ever getting married. eHarmony would be the improper niche and a poor solution for us. There are many benefits to rolling single. It is half price every time we go to a concert, go to dinner, etc. Had I picked up on that one in my early thirties, am certain I would be sharing billionaire dinners with Mr. Jobs, Mr. Pickens, and Mr. Gates. Moreover those of us in this non-marrying niche also have the benefit of that first 90 days of perfection happening every 91 days. When you see an underserved market, dive right in. Fill in that gaping void.

This evening we are proud to announce the on line beta version of Mind of Mully E Dissonance (MOMED….pronounced Moe-Med…emphasis on the second syllable). If you’re just looking for some fun with absolutely no expectations or commitment, print out the form below, circle your answers in purple crayon, and mail your submission to The LJ with $53.00 in cold hard cash. Within fourteen days, a random (yet well matched by our crack team of mate matchers shown below) person will show up at your door for a mystery date.

eHarmony’s “twenty-nine dimensions of compatibility” pale in comparison to The Mind of Mully E-Dissonance “thirty dimensions of relative compatibility”.

Mind of Mully has 30.

One louder.

Multiple Choice

The word that most accurately describes me is:

Female

Male

The word that most accurately describes what I am looking for is:

Equine

Bovine

Porcine

Supine

Most days, I am:

Well coiffed

Disheveled

Persnickety

Enigmatic

Well fed

The Irish are clearly:

God’s chosen people

Masters of innovation with potatoes

Masters of innovation with alcohol flavored things

All of the above

None of the above

My ideal night would involve:

Role play

Gun play

Mamet play

Play Dough

I have been charged with a felony:

Once

Twice

Three times

I have been convicted of a felony:

Once

Twice

Three times

My favorite color is:

Pear

Chartreuse

Pistachio

Mel Gibson is:

Crazy

Really crazy

Really, really crazy

Australian

When I levitate, I prefer to look straight out, as opposed to down

True

False

If I had to go to a really, really, really long concert, it would be a concert by:

Widespread Panic

Phish

Some random reggae band

I don’t do drugs, but thanks anyway!

When I was on E Harmony, I:

Did get married

Didn’t get married

True or False

4 x 4 = 16

The French, for the most part, are annoying

Rye toast is superior to sourdough cheese bread

Always split aces and eights

Double down on eleven

Fighting a land war in Southeast Asia is an excellent idea

The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons

Best Zins are the red Zins

4 + 4 + 4 +4 = 16

Essay

On a hot summer’s night would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

Will he offer me his mouth?

Will he offer me his teeth?

Will he offer me his jaws?

Will he offer me his hunger?

Again?

Will he starve without me?

Does he love me?

On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

Seconds on meatloaf? Sure, why not. How about Bat Out of Hell? Those two sure wrote some damn music back in the day……”the sirens are screaming and the fires are howling way down in the valley tonight.” Far, far superior to Cypress Hill.

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music for this evening’s treatise in a new browser window. Proof positive that John E. from The Who could write some damn fine music)

Spent Friday evening with a friend who recently visited New York City, visiting Ellis Island as part of her trip. A grade school teacher made us memorize Emma Lazarus’s poem The Colossus, engraved on the other island in that harbor, at the base of the Statue of Liberty. “Give me your tired, your poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me-I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

One of the finest examples of consonance as a poetic tool is Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. Sitting there at his desk, all hopped up on true old school absinthe and pinot noir, Mr. Poe gave us the one of the finest examples of despair being the absence of hope. The motif is throughout the poem, especially in the following verse: “Other friends have flown before -On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”

As documented here several months back we white, upper class males have lost hope these days. We white, upper class males are the picture of despair: despair being the absence of hope.

Sunday, Nelson Mandela opened the final match of the World Cup by cruising around the pitch in front of the word and 80,000 fans just outside of Soweto. Almost one billion people watched a man imprisoned for twenty-seven years for his anti-apartheid views ride around smiling in the final match that many never expected to see in that nation. Was only thirty-three years ago that South Africa’s upper class white males murdered Stephen Bantu Biko. Rent Denzel Washington’s movie Cry Freedom if you care to see how far South Africa has come in three decades. Mandela shared a great deal of hope and dignity that he shared with South Africa

Last Monday was the fifteenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in eastern Bosnia. Radko Maldi and his troops lined up between 7,000 and 8,000 Muslims in a single day and shot them. They expelled 30,000 more Muslims, raped women and young girls, and destroyed entire villages. 750 recently identified bodies from mass graves were reinterred in Potocari on Sunday. The remaining eleven million Muslims have rebuilt and carried on with a great deal of hope.

Monday was also the sixth month anniversary of the earthquake in Port Au Prince. There are still one and a half million homeless folks in Port Au Prince an estimated 350,000 orphans. Now that the broadcaster vultures are back for a week, we’re seeing interviews and by golly, there’s a still a lot of hope in those smiling faces. Especially the kids’ faces.

For every one murdering, entitled, trust fund rich kid jackass like Johan Vandersloot, there are a few hundred thousand non-entitled non-jackass kids, well deserving of a chance at finishing a secondary education and entering college. Had the opportunity to meet twenty-three of them last Friday evening at The Seville Theater in San Diego. Strong young women with a magnificent analytical acuity.

Twenty-three young mothers who availed themselves of Street of Dreams here in San Diego and choose to finish high school on their own. Each began by stating their name, their challenge, and their dream…then they read their poems. Each poem full of hope from young women that have seen things none of us ever has or ever will.

I Am

I struggle not to become a statistic

I am someone who wants to become great

I am my own person

I am strong minded

I am going to walk with my head up

I have had a lot of problems

You are not in my shoes

Tears…smiles…

I won’t give up

I am a young woman

I am proud

I take the blame

Trying so hard

Been through so much

I am on my way

Look at the inside

I want you to know who I am

I am a survivor

I am a young mom

Who loves her son

I am a person

Who wants to be loved

May 18, 2010

Group Poem: Linsday School

……..and at the end of each of their lives is an open door. Bravo Street of Dreams. We white, upper middle class males are envious of the hope you bring to the world.

(Editor’s Note: Through an act of force majeure, MullyOpes Aid (Joeapalooza) is moved to October, 2010. As per usual, 100% of the $$$$$$ raised at MullyOpes Aid (Joeapalooza) goes to fund scholarships at Street of Dreams. MullyOpes Aid (Joeapalooza) will begin accepting corporate sponsorship applications in August. Tell your friends. Especially the white, upper class male friends who run companies. Maybe we can give them some hope.)